Step-by-Step Guide: Installing SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025 (aka SAP BI 2025)

[Patrick_Perrier]

Get ready for SAP BI 2025!

Welcome to this comprehensive tutorial on installing SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025, the latest evolution of SAP's trusted business intelligence platform.

As someone who has been working with this technology for over 25 years and writing installation guides since SAP BI 4.1 back in 2013, I know how important a smooth setup process is. This guide will walk you through every step, complete with screenshots and useful links, so you can get SAP BI 2025 up and running without any headaches.

I still can't believe SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025 is here!  Bringing a fresh wave of enhancements that make business intelligence more efficient, secure, and future-ready.  Let’s do this!

Before you start

Here are some useful links I think are worth reading first before going ahead and getting technical!

🚀What's New:

• Welcome to SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025 by @GregBotticchio
• Experience Your Favourite BI Platform, BOBJ, in a Fresh New Look with the SAP BI 2025 Release by @VenkateswaraGupthaY
• SAP BI 2025: What’s New In Web Intelligence and Semantic Layer by @christian_ah-soon 
• SAP BI 2025: What’s New in Crystal Reports by @donald_guo 
• Official What's New (SAP Help)

📝Strategy:

• SAP Analytics Business Intelligence Statement of Direction
• SAP BI On Premise Maintenance Strategy
• BI 2025 Maintenance Strategy & Schedule (SAP Note)

General Availability: 12.03.2025 (Version: 14.4.0.5253)
End of Mainstream Maintenance: 31.12.2027

 ⚙️ Technical:

• 🔥 Supported Platforms (PAM) 
• ⚠️ Products and features are removed in SAP BusinessObjects BI platform 2025 (SAP Notes)
• 🆘 SAP Business Intelligence Suite Release Restrictions
• 💾 SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025 Release Notes
• User Guides (SAP Help)
• Installation & Upgrade Guides (SAP Help)
• Administrator's Guides (SAP Help)

Technical Assessment

Run a Free SAP BI 2025 Readiness Assessment

Wiiisdom offers a free Customer Cockpit in 360Suite that helps assess your organization's readiness for SAP BI 2025. This tool provides valuable statistical insights about your environment, including:

• The number of UNV universes that will need to be converted to UNX.
• The number of Crystal Reports for Enterprise that must be converted to Crystal Reports "Classic" or Web Intelligence.
• The number of Lumira visualizations that will need to be rebuilt in SAP Analytics Cloud or Web Intelligence.
• The number of Live Office documents that must be rebuilt in SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office or Web Intelligence.
• The number of documents in Analysis for OLAP that will need to be rebuilt in SAP Analytics Cloud or Web Intelligence.

In addition, the solution provides insights into your Universes' usage, such as:

• The number of documents still pointing to UNV universes (these will need to be repointed).
• The number of UNX Multi Source Universes (MSU) that will need to be converted to Single Source Universes (SSU).

Pre-Requisites

License Keys

Before proceeding with a new installation, upgrade, or migration of SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025, it is essential to generate a new License Key. Even if you are upgrading from a previous version, a fresh license key is required to activate BI 2025 successfully.

In addition to reviewing the provided documents and links, make sure to complete this step before installation to avoid any activation issues.

This actually might be the most complicated part of this entire project!

For guidance on generating your SAP BI 2025 license key, refer to the following links:

• 📌 How to generate license keys for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform (SAP Notes)
• 📌 SAP provides Emergency License Keys valid for 90-days in case there are issues in obtaining your permanent keys.  Make sure to read the important notes at the top of the PDF.

Software Download

Finding all the necessary installation files for SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025 can sometimes be a bit tricky. If you're having trouble locating them, don't worry—SAP provides a helpful SAP Note that outlines exactly where to download everything you need.

📌 How to download SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) software (SAP Notes)

📌 Shortcut to SAP BusinessObjects BI 2025 Download page

Installation Steps

The steps outlined below are specific to the Windows installation, but the process for Linux is very similar; please refer to the official documentation for more detailed instructions.

The first step is to launch the installer. You can execute the initial file you downloaded, "BIPLATS4400_0-80008823_P1.EXE," or, personally, I prefer using a tool like WinRAR to extract the file to a folder first and then run "setup.exe" to start the installation. In both cases, the second file, "BIPLATS4400_0-80008823_P2.RAR," will be used automatically. Choose whichever method you prefer!

As you can see here, the prerequisite check failed because I needed to address a suppressed reboot. Whatever the issues may be, they will need to be resolved before you can continue.

Although you can change your mind later and select additional languages, I strongly recommend making your decision during the initial installation to avoid lengthy steps and unnecessary risks.

Based on my experience, unless I only require a Web Server, selecting the Web Tier is perfect for the job. In all other cases, I opt for a Full installation and, if necessary, manually disable the Tomcat service. While this may waste some disk space and take a little more time during updates, it ensures that you have a Web Tier available on that application server for troubleshooting purposes.

I would never choose a Custom / Expand installation. In the end, you'll only save a bit of disk space, but you'll reduce your flexibility later on.

Remember: SAP doesn't recommend using the default SQL Anywhere Database for BI in Production.  SAP Note.  Here I'll be using Microsoft SQL Server Express 2022 but below is the screen you'd get if you decided to stick with Sybase SQL Anywhere.

It requires some technical skills but it is possible to change your mind later on and use a different database for the System Database without losing your data.  You'd be doing this in the Central Configuration Manager (CCM).  It's a different story for the Audit Database...

Note: In this case, I created my ODBC connections first.  If you forget, you can go ahead at this stage and click Refresh to load them in the installer.

Note: The SIA Port and the same below for the CMS and Tomcat can be changed easily after the installation.

Note: Make sure you keep all these passwords in a vault or something.  The CMS Cluster Key is needed for a number of things like clustering servers for instance.

 🥳 And... Done

About screen from the Central Management Console (CMC):

 About screen from the BI launch pad:

Post-Installation Configuration

When logging into the Central Management Console (CMC) for the first time, you will be prompted with the System Configuration Wizard. While this can be done at a later stage and is available from the main menu, I recommend completing it sooner rather than later.

In short, this wizard will guide you through the process of splitting and configuring your Adaptive Processing Servers (APS). The more RAM you have, the more options you'll be able to configure.

This isn't a new wizard, but I’m always surprised to see production environments where the APS aren’t optimally configured. This is a great place to start, and be sure to consult the administrator's and sizing guides for more detailed information.

Note: As you can see, selecting 15-25 GB RAM will create 7 APS on this node.  The default installation only has 1 APS.

Conclusion

I'm sure you're as excited as I am about this new release, and I hope this guide has been helpful to you.

There’s a lot of great documentation out there, but it can be all over the place and difficult to find. My goal with these guides remains the same: to provide what I think are the most useful and important resources all in one place.

Feel free to share your comments and suggestions!

Thanks, and take care.